Portable communication devices such as a cellular telephone and PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) have come into popular use. Due to the progress in multi-functionality, cellular telephones, for example, often have functions for transmitting/receiving text/image data, taking a picture and the like in addition to call functions. Such cellular telephone is provided with a display for displaying text/image data and pictures.
There is found an example of a conventional cellular telephone having a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) camera and an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) for displaying pictures taken by the camera, etc. in Japanese Patent Application laid open No. HEI6-292195.
In the conventional cellular telephone, an objective lens of the camera is placed adjacent to the display in a plane common with the LCD. With this construction, a user can transmit pictures taken by the camera to his/her party as well as looking at images received from the party while carrying on a conversation. That is, the cellular telephone can be used as what is called a television telephone.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an oblique perspective view of the conventional cellular telephone. Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional cellular telephone comprises a main body 103, a cover 104, a display section 111 having an LCD, a camera section 112 for taking user's own pictures and an operation section 113 including several operation keys and buttons. The cover 104 is of approximately the same dimension as the main body 103. The cover 104 is joined to the main body 103 so as to be foldable like a bivalve shell by a rotation supporting mechanism that supports the cover 104 for rotational movement. In this construction, the operation section 113 is generally provided on the main body 103, while the display section 111 is provided on the cover 104 for the reason that a user holds the main body 103 when using the cellular telephone.
The main body 103 and the cover 104 each have an inner surface that is unexposed when the main body 103 and the cover 104 are folded. As can be seen in FIG. 1, the display section 111, the camera section 112 and the operation section 113 are arranged on the inner surfaces. The cellular telephone is folded up into a compact form while being carried around or unused. Consequently, it is possible to reliably prevent damage to the surface of the LCD and wrong operation of the operation keys, thus realizing excellent portability.
Incidentally, the cellular telephone having a camera as above is required to be available for taking pictures of various scenes and objects at places where a user has gone by taking advantage of its portability and, for example, transmitting moving pictures on camera in real time.
However there are some problems in the conventional cellular telephone. As can be seen in FIG. 1, the camera section 112 of the conventional cellular telephone is arranged adjacent to the display section 111 in a plane common with the LCD. Consequently, it is difficult for a user to check images on camera displayed in the LCD while taking pictures of objects other than user's own face such as a landscape since the objective lens of the camera section 112 has to be directed toward the objects. In addition, the user him/herself is sometimes captured in an image when checking the image on camera. Besides, there is a difficulty in bringing an object into focus swiftly and reliably.
That is, the camera section 112 of the conventional cellular telephone is intended mainly to take a picture of user's own face, and therefore quite inconvenient and operationally inefficient for taking pictures of objects other than user's own face.
In order to solve those problems, it has been proposed to place the camera on the side of the cover opposite the display, or provide another camera for taking pictures of other objects in addition to the camera for taking pictures of user's own face.
However, in the case where the camera is placed on the side of the cover opposite the display, the objective lens of the camera is exposed and unprotected when the cellular telephone is folded, and the objective lens is subject to damage. On the other hand, in the case where the cellular telephone is provided with plural cameras, the entire body of the cellular telephone is increased in size, thus reducing its portability.